'Halo 4' And The Impossible Quest For Novelty And Wonder

Halo 4 is a strong game that does a good job staying true to the Halo franchise while not shrinking away from innovations - but the novelty of the series wore off a long time ago.

The first time I played Halo felt a little bit like the first time I played DOOM or the first time I played Half-Life 2. Actually, it reminds me a little bit of the first time I played Super Mario Bros.

This was something new - perhaps not revolutionary, but new enough to have me hooked. There was something about gazing up at the Halo itself, at that distant ring in the sky, that gave the game a new kind of scope and grandeur I hadn't encountered before.

Several hours deep into Halo 4 and there's no denying it's a good game, and almost certainly the best looking of the franchise (and one of the best looking games ever released on Xbox 360.)

Everything from the cut-scenes to the shooting mechanics to the voice-acting is perfectly solid. 343 Industries took the reins from Bungie and made what's shaping up to be one of the best Halo games in years.

But the thrill is gone.

Perhaps this says more about age and experience than about Halo 4; or perhaps it merely points to the perils any long-running franchise faces eventually.

Whatever the case, that sense of awe and wonder I experienced during my first time with Halo aren't coming back.

I don't think this is actually a matter of innovation vs. staying true to the game's mechanics and spirit. Some have criticized Halo 4 for not pushing the envelope while at the same time admitting that 343 Industries is in a real bind introducing anything new and potentially game-breaking.

No, it's not for lack of innovation. New weapons, new enemies - these things work well enough. The game feels overhauled in subtle ways as well; vehicles feel more maneuverable than in past titles, for instance.

What's missing is the novelty of the first game. And novelty isn't something you can program back into a franchise after so many years. The missing piece was bound to be missing and 343 Industries essentially had no way of getting it back.

Tangentially, this makes me wonder how much age and experience play a role in how reviews are not only written but received.

Take XCOM: Enemy Unknown, for instance. As someone who never played the original, I found the remake a highly addictive, extremely fun game that played just about perfectly.

But had I been a bit older, or had I happened to play the original X-COM, my opinion might have varied. What was novel and exciting would have become a deviation from the original and quite possibly not merely a disappointment but just...no big deal. Nothing new.

Very few games evoke a sense of wonder in me these days; often the ones that do are indie titles that take risks, but just as often that novelty can be little more than a thin veneer covering up a gimmick.

New isn't always better, which is why so many people tend to fall head over heels for "old-school" games. Both novelty and nostalgia can work together, and were certainly both at play when I began playing Dark Souls for the first time. Conversely, a game like Spec Ops: The Line hit me so hard because it was at once a new level of storytelling in video games and a throwback to films like Apocalypse Now and the Joseph Conrad novella, Heart of Darkness.

From what I've played of Halo 4 so far, it's a solid title with a reasonable balance between staying true to the franchise and trying new things.